Month: December 2011

Doing Nothing is Doing Something

ICangles Investment Post…

In my August post I recommended investors do nothing in terms of stocks. In my view as we end the year, stocks still represent a good value in terms of dividend yields versus bonds, and an investment portfolio should hold a healthy portion of stocks. The S&P 500 index of large cap U.S. stocks is yielding more than ten year Treasuries. So despite the volatility I didn’t argue for selling, but neither did I argue for aggressively adding to stock positions given legitimate concerns about European debt issues. I found it worrisome that the earlier stock rally had broken down, and plausible that a volatile stock market could move any direction—higher, lower or sideways. And for the year it basically did move sideways. But the value and lack of good investment alternatives in my mind argued for doing nothing and holding onto positions.

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